


we dreamed of better things

by easystreets



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Canon-Typical Gang Behavior (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Childhood, Gen, Implied Char/Mac, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easystreets/pseuds/easystreets
Summary: For Mac, every hardship is a test of faith.
Relationships: Charlie Kelly & Mac McDonald, Charlie Kelly/Mac McDonald
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	we dreamed of better things

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Also Uncle Jack is mentioned in this, which might be a trigger for some-- nothing is explicit; things are pretty canon-typical as far as that goes, but still! It's good to know.

Every third Thursday afternoon Mrs. Kelly comes to pick Charlie up from school, hands shaking at the wheel of her piece-of-shit Chrysler, and Mac is left with exhaust steaming in his face and seemingly endless hours of silence. They spend every day together: whenever Charlie’s Uncle Jack comes up from Manhattan for holidays or especially long weekends, they share Mac’s bed and watch public access until sunrise; when Mac’s dad got arrested, Charlie helped him slash the cop car tires (or, at least try to slash ‘em, until they realized the rusted Swiss Army knife they found in the gutter wasn’t going to cut it, literally. It was the thought that counted, always is with these two.)

And now he’s alone, and there’s no  _ hey Mac look didja see that worm? I always wonder like where they go? Because I know it’s underground but like… where, what if this worm came all the way from North Philly, like would that be crazy or what  _ and he doesn’t have to scan the sidewalk for potential threats as much as he usually does. Charlie is definitely a target for creeps, although Mac’d never say so to him. Charlie’s kind of sensitive like that; cries at broken butterflies and the _Growing Up: Physical Changes_ movie they watched in sex-ed and skinned knees. He’s definitely lucky to have someone like Mac on his side-- Mac can’t imagine what Charlie would do without him. Probably piss the bed with Uncle Jack in it every night and live like a wild animal in the forest, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. It's good they have each other, Mac thinks. After all, every badass action movie hero needs a weird sidekick to clean his cuts after the bad guys try to kill him.

Mac walks past his own house, because Mom is probably at work and wouldn’t want him to be home alone all by himself. Not that Mom doesn’t trust him, because she so does, enough to cook dinner every night and buy groceries and smokes from the WaWa and drive the car to the liquor store if she asks him to, even though he’s only thirteen turning fourteen in January. Poppins is at Charlie’s and Uncle Jack is there again for National Uncle Day, which sounds incredibly made-up, but like hell Mac’s going to the library to disprove it, and so Mac goes to the next best place that isn’t home: church, more specifically St. Sebastian’s on 79th Street.

The doors are closed like always and Mac presses his head to them once he gets there, allows the cool glass to absolve him of his sins. Sometimes in especially boring classes (the ones where he and Charlie are separated and sit across the room from each other and the teachers tell him he’s got potential, if only he’d focus a bit; try that much harder) Mac writes letters to God so it looks like he’s taking notes. Sometimes Mac writes letters to his Dad and sometimes to the entire Eagles team and he _always_ sends them. Always. Always in the St. Seb’s mailbox with the big white _NO SOLICITING_ sticker on it. Nobody ever answers, but it helps to imagine God rifling through them and thinking about how reverent Mac is, how in Heaven Mac will totally be absolved of everything and play catch with his Dad every day and have unlimited Coors to drink with Charlie on idyllic doorsteps where all the cigarette butts they smoke are still hot and Poppins would be there and maybe he'd even have a real black belt. He definitely wants a katana or something of that measure too if God chooses to be in a giving mood. He hasn’t been especially kind to Mac as of late, but the tide will turn soon. It always does. Usually, in small instances: he and Charlie will find a half-off coupon for McDonald’s in a parking lot or discover a crumpled and disturbingly sticky Playboy Magazine in the forest behind school. Mac just knows God is smiling down on him when he drops these rewards, little trinkets to thank him for his (mostly) unwavering faith. 

Today in his backpack there are two letters, crumpled and written messily on loose-leaf for him to send, though, and the church people get mad if he spends too much time getting fingerprints all over the windows on their doorstep, so Mac hurriedly rifles through his and Charlie’s homework and finds the two he’s looking for.

_ Dear Dad _

_ How is prison? Do you play prison baseball? If you get parole soon (by the way I am sure you will) we should totally play catch together! I have been practicing lots and my arm is getting pretty good! _

_ Mom and I miss you a lot. She is so sad about you but she is staying strong for me. Poppins has been very upset too. Don’t worry about us though. Especially not me because I am the man of the house now and will take care of things. I know you are super proud of me Dad even though you don’t ever say it. It’s okay. I understand. _

_ Love your son Mac _

Like most every third Thursday afternoon, he reads the letter over once more for good luck, and then throws it unstamped into the box. God will find a way to get it to Dad, he knows. 

_ Dear God, _

_ So I have been repenting a lot lately. Saying no to things that will lead me to sin and all that. I haven’t even been drinking that much and last Saturday at Walmart I held the door open for Charlie and bought him a can of soda even after he tried to bite me in the parking lot. Point is I have been super faithful and Christian and I was thinking that maybe you could help me with this one thing? Because I have been doing a lot to distract from all of these urges but I can’t get it to go away and I trust in you totally dude but I am starting to question things? _

_ Basically I am having all these homosexual thoughts lately about like banging guys and stuff. And I try not to have them. But it’s really hard and I am worried. I don’t want to end up with AIDs or something. So could you make me not think gay? I will try very hard to repent and do nice things. Like today when I take Poppins for a walk I’ll do my best to pick up his shit. And maybe I’ll steal Mom some cigarettes. _

_ Either way I know that these thoughts are just a test. And like I said I would never act on them because that’s wrong and means I’ll be spending the eternity in Hell. But I am really getting worried about them. Please give me another test of faith, like a broken leg or even getting attacked by a shark or something. It would be better for the both of us. _

_ Love your son Mac. _

His hand hesitates at the mailbox slot. What if one of the church people read it? The thought makes Mac sick so he crumples it back into his bag and keeps walking. God will understand, he knows, but Mac is pretty sure God wasn’t tormented by thoughts of kissing pretty boys and taking Charlie out on a date and saying stupid things just to turn his cheeks red. Mac is pretty sure this is something God never meant for him at all.

* * *

Mac walks for another three blocks before the wind picks up and his hands turn red and chapped. He shoves them into the pockets of his Wranglers and keeps on until wind turns into delicate flakes of first snow into sleet, and he’s forced to duck into an alleyway and pause, backpack and the letter weighing down on his shoulders.

There are two guys standing there, young and officey looking with big bags under their eyes and an anxious hum running through their polished shoes, and Mac is about to ask one of them if he can bum a cigarette when one of the suits turns and not-so-clandestinely kisses the other.

“That’s gay,” Mac says, half-shocked because the guys obviously didn’t see him, and what else is there to say? That it’s _good_? That they’re both certainly not going to rot in Hell forever and ever unless they haul ass to St. Seb’s and repent _now_?

“Hey kid,” one of the guys says, turning towards him, face young and unfortunately handsome, “shove off. This isn’t any of your business.”

“You’re going to Hell,” Mac says, and he’s not even saying it to them. He’s saying it to himself. 

“And so what if I don’t believe in Hell?” The guy gives him a fucking look, like he’s some idiot kid.

Mac flails, uncomfortably, until he finds something beautifully horrible to say. “Then I’ll scream. And when someone comes to see what’s wrong, I’ll tell them that you two were trying to--”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” says the guy, and Mac wonders if he’s going to have to make a run for it, how long he can last before this six-foot asshole beats the living loving shit out of him. “Watch your goddamn mouth.”

“Stop it, Lawrence, just pay the kid off.” The quiet guy says, reaching for the arm of the other man. They both shuffle in their pockets, digging deep into briefcases until they come up with more legitimate money in cash than Mac has ever seen in his entire life.

“Two-hundred.” The guy who isn’t named Lawrence says, and Mac has never been so happy to run into a torrential downpour before, twenties shoved gleefully into the pouch of his backpack, letter wet and forgotten at the bottom. 

* * *

“Ya found this in a parking lot?” Charlie asks, eyes wide and hazy. He crosses his legs in his pajamas (yellow and with space-ships; Mrs. Kelly’s favorite pair, which means he was too doped out from his allergy treatments to pick for himself) and grins at the money again. “What the hell are we gonna do with all of this, man?”

Mac smiles from the opposite end of the bed and wishes he’d brought his pajamas. Oh well. He’ll just sleep in his clothes. It doesn’t really matter that he’s starving or that the rain drenched his clothes or that he didn’t really find the money in a parking lot. What matters is that he and Charlie are going to be rich for at least a day, and be able to buy all the booze and slushies and paintball guns that they want.

“We can spend a big chunk of it tomorrow.” Mac decides for the two of them. He flicks off the lamp so that only Charlie’s night light is on, dull and yellow, lighting them both up in a sort of sleepy glow. “Put the rest in our savings or whatever.”

“Yeah dude,” Charlie slurs, half-awake. “Come sleep up here or Uncle Jack’ll…” He doesn’t have to say it: Uncle Jack has been lurking outside the bedroom door ever since Mac showed up, dripping wet and beaming with frenzied excitement. Mac crawls across the bed and thunks down next to Charlie.

They’re both quiet for a moment, breathing in and out, listening to Poppin’s nightmarish snorts from under the bed, and then Charlie grabs Mac’s hand.

“What are you doing, dude?” Mac says, but he doesn’t drag it away. Charlie’s looking at him, really looking at him, and he almost blushes, it’s so terrible.

“Hands are cold.” 

“Okay,” Mac says, even though it really isn’t. Even though nothing is. “Goodnight, Charlie.”

He lays and stares at the ceiling for what feels like forever, with Charlie’s hand clammy in his own. It’s just another test of faith, Mac thinks, pulling Charlie's hand away from his own. He knots his fingers together and begins to pray for forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please comment! And thank you again for reading. I never write from Mac's POV but I love him, especially early seasons bossy-gay-asshole-who-got-most-of-his-personality-from-Die-Hard-but-is-sometimes-sweet Mac.


End file.
